Child marriage in conflict- and crisis-affected settings: sharing evidence and promising practice

Risk factors for child marriage increase significantly in conflict- and crisis-affected settings. In states considered fragile, over 1 in 3 girls are married before the age of 18¹. This is because the core drivers of child marriage and GBV more broadly are exacerbated by stress and uncertainty. Despite this, child marriage prevention is rarely adequately prioritised within humanitarian or crisis response systems. Promoting the rights of adolescent girls living in conflict- and crisis-affected settings must be a priority for all.

This webinar was a space to:

• Explore and discuss the latest research and practice-based evidence on child marriage in conflict- and crisis-affected settings from our recently published report
• Hear directly from Girls Not Brides member organisations sharing promising practice
• Learn about recommendations to better equip local, national and international actors to prevent and respond to child marriage in these settings.

Key takeaways

• The evidence clearly demonstrates that risk factors for CEFMU increase across all forms of conflict and crisis, and that risks further increase in settings (such as West, Central, East and Southern Africa and South Asia) where girls face overlapping crises and challenges. Despite this, there is a consistent lack of prioritisation for preventing and responding to CEFMU in humanitarian prevention and response efforts.
• The evidence base on preventing and responding to child marriage in conflict and crisis-affected settings is nascent but growing. Multiple stakeholders are committed to strengthening the evidence base on proven and promising interventions, including in under-researched but high-prevalence contexts (such as Francophone Africa and West and Central Africa).
• Girls’ access to safe, quality education can play a pivotal role in preventing and responding to child marriage, especially in conflict and crisis-affected settings. The likelihood of girls marrying before age 18 is 6 percentage points less for every year spent in secondary school, yet girls’ access to secondary schooling and transition from primary to secondary can be especially challenging in humanitarian settings.
• It is critical that interventions that address child marriage centre the contexts, needs, voices and lived experiences of community members in conflict- and crisis-affected settings, especially those at risk of or who have experienced child marriage. Interventions should be designed based on an understanding of the context before the crisis started, and also the specific ways in which the crisis – and responses to the crisis – may have impacted girls and their families, peer networks, and ability to access key services.
• Approaches that amplify community/place-based expertise and the expertise of civil society organisations, frontline women’s rights and feminist organisations, and child rights organisations, should be prioritised in humanitarian response efforts.
• Girl-centred, gender-transformative approaches (GTA) are necessary to tackle child marriage in conflict and crisis-affected settings. The power imbalances, harmful norms and unequal social structures that perpetuate gender inequality typically become more entrenched and pronounced in humanitarian settings. GTA can be applied across different intervention areas, including safe space programming, economic strengthening activities, education and social norms interventions. See our Girls Not Brides member case study and spotlight to learn more on GTA in conflict and crisis-affected settings.
• Arts-based interventions can play an important role in child marriage prevention and response efforts in conflict- and crisis-affected settings as a means of raising awareness and dialogue on the risks and consequences of child marriage in a sensitive and non-confrontational way. These approaches must be rights-based and grounded in the realities of the communities they are targeting, as demonstrated by the Marriage Is Not a Game by Abaad and documented in our member case study.
• Urgent, coordinated action at all levels of humanitarian, development, and peace nexus programming is needed to better understand, recognise and respond to the needs and priorities of girls and adolescent girls – unmarried and ever-married – to prevent and respond to child marriage in conflict- and crisis-affected settings.